If you’re paying attention to geo-political and economic affairs at
the moment, then you cant’ ignore the gathering storm clouds in Europe.

No one at the White House will officially admit it, but we may well
be sitting on the cusp of a widespread conflagration. To suggest
otherwise is simply naive. The chess game is, without a doubt, in full
swing.

After having threatened Vladimir Putin’s $40 billion personal fortune
with asset forfeiture last week, the United States continues to push
forward with a variety of sanctions against anyone and any nation
believed to be providing material support to pro-Russian interests. This
morning the S&P ratings agency, likely with the support of U.S.
officials, fired a shot across the bow of the Russian economy by
downgrading the country to just above “junk status,” a move likely
designed to scare foreign investment interests and bank capital to flee
the country.

Russia retaliated almost immediately by proposing a scorched earth policy
reminiscent of their tactical withdrawal against the Germans in World
War II. In essence, should the United States continue its attack on the
Russian economy and individual wealth, the country will begin to divest
itself completely of Western influence by withdrawing all dollar and
Euro denominated assets, selling investment bonds of any country
supporting the sanctions, and engaging in global trade through exchange
mechanisms that do not involve the dollar.

the State Department sallies forth with a bracing challenge for Russia
to respect the lame-o Twitter hashtag they touted last month:

She hopes the Kremlin will “live by the promise of hashtag?” Was she
drunk when she wrote this? It’s not just social-media theater, either;
Psaki mentioned it in a press conference, too, grumbling about the
Russians: “I don’t think they’re living by their hashtag.”

What I am saying is that all we Americans are trading one form of
slavery for another. All of us are in some measure slaves of the
federal government. Through their oppressive tactics of telling the
ranchers how many cows they can have on their land, and making that
number too low to support a ranch, the BLM has driven every rancher in
Clark County off the land, except me. The IRS keeps the people of
America in fear, and makes us all work about a third or a half of the
year before we have earned enough to pay their taxes. This is nothing
but slavery from January through May.

The NSA spies on us and collects
our private phone calls and emails. And the government dole which many
people in America are on, and have been for much of their lives, is
dehumanizing and degrading. It takes away incentive to work and self
respect. Eventually a person on the dole becomes a ward of the
government, because his only source of income is a dole from the
government. Once the government has you in that position, you are its
slave.

The new head of the U.S. pardon office is not only deeply tied to former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers – as WND exclusively reported Wednesday – but also to Ayers’ wife, Bernardine Dohrn, a co-founder with him of the domestic terrorist group.

The Justice Department announced Wednesday that Deborah Leff, currently a senior adviser to Attorney General Eric Holder, will take over the Office of the Pardon Attorney, where she will oversee vetting federal inmate applicants for presidential grants of clemency.

Leff served in the 1990s as president of the Joyce Foundation, an education reform and anti-gun activist group. Obama served on the Joyce Foundation board from 1994 to 2002. He was named to the board by Leff.

WND found that in 1996, Leff appeared with Dohrn, once the FBI’s most wanted woman, as a panelist at a gun violence discussion sponsored by the American Bar Association in Chicago.

The controversy over Cliven Bundy’s “racist” remarks has taken a new
turn after longer unedited footage emerged showing the Nevada cattle
rancher making pro-black and pro-Mexican comments that were excised out
of media reports.

The full clip illustrates how the original New York Times report edited
out statements made by Bundy both before and after his supposedly
“racist” remarks, which when taken in their full context actually
constitute a pro-minority position. Media Matters also cut out these crucial comments from their YouTube upload of Bundy’s remarks.

Bundy’s full comments are reprinted below, with the
parts not printed by the New York Times and other media outlets
highlighted in bold.

Another great and favourite topic in survival community is matter of
best caliber and weapon for SHTF, and ammo with most stopping power.
Stopping power means how quickly and with few bullets you can make
threat unable to attack you or anyone else.

I tell you now, even for urban survival and the situation I have been through and speak about in my course, it is more important to discuss water filtering in urban SHTF scenarios than talking about stopping power.

Do not get me wrong, I am perfectly aware that burst from the machine
gun in the man standing in front of you will do much more damage (and
probably will stop him forever) than shooting at him with a pistol.

I have seen and been in lots of gunfights and in real life, shootings are not so simple that guy with bigger gun wins.

It is about you

Our study committee on Common Core held our final meeting today. After
some spirited debate, we voted 9-3 to approve a report including a bill
to begin to remove Common Core from the public education system in North
Carolina and replace it with North Carolina
standards.

The bill, authored by Sen. Jerry Tillman, bears the short title:

"AN
ACT TO REPLACE THE COMMON CORE BY EXERCISING NORTH CAROLINA'S PROPER
CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY OVER ALL ACADEMIC STANDARDS AND TO ENSURE THAT
STANDARDS ARE ROBUST AND APPROPRIATE, AND THAT
THEY ENABLE STUDENTS TO SUCCEED ACADEMICALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY, AS
RECOMMENDED BY THE LEGISLATIVE RESEARCH COMMISSION STUDY COMMITTEE ON
THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS."

(I know... that doesn't look like a "short" title. Believe me, it is, compared
to some short titles of bills we consider in the Legislature.)

This bill removes Common Core from our State Statutes and creates a new
Academic Standards Review Commission. This Commission will only have
one member of the House and one member of the Senate as Chairs, and will
also include the Lt. Governor or a designee,
the Superintendent of Public Instruction, six members appointed by the
Speaker of the House, six members appointed by the President Pro Tempore
of the Senate, two members of the State Board of Education, and one
member appointed by the Governor. The Speaker
and the President Pro Tempore, in appointing their respective six
members, "shall consider, but {are} not limited to appointing
representatives from the following groups in these appointments: parents
of students enrolled in the public schools; Mathematics
and English Language Arts teachers; and Mathematics and English
Language Arts curriculum experts."

The purpose of this Commission will be to:

·review academic standards adopted by the State Board of Education,

·recommend to that Board changes and modifications to these standards,

·review the proposed changes to academic standards submitted by the Board to the Commission,

·recommend to the Board assessments aligned
to proposed changes and modification that would also reduce the number
of assessments administered to public schools, and

·consider the impact on educators, including the need for professional development, when making any such recommendations.

The Commission will be required to assemble content experts to assist in
evaluating the rigor of academic standards and involve interested
stakeholders in this process while keeping the process transparent.

In this process, the Commission may contract for professional, clerical,
and consultant services, and may also contract with an individual who
has an excellent national reputation in the area of school standards and
assessments to facilitate the work of the
Commission. I have my own ideas about who that individual should be.
We'll see how that goes.

The first meeting of this Commission must be no later than September 1, 2014. I hope it will be much sooner than that. The Commission's final report is due by May, 2016. The Commission terminates on December 31, 2015,
or upon the filing of its final report,
whichever occurs first. Sen. Tillman, the author of this bill, was
successful in adding an amendment which allows the Commission to make
recommendations to the State Board of Education from the time the
Commission begins to meet, and whenever they see the
need along the way. That way, changes that need to be made will not
have to wait until the final report of the Commission is submitted. The
Commission is only an Advisory Commission; but it should carry a lot of
weight, even if the State Board of Education
is resistant.

Of course, this bill still must be considered by the full Legislature before it becomes law effective July 1, 2014.
If enacted, it will mean the removal of Common Core from our statutes
immediately on that day. I expect there will be an effort to move the
final report date either to January, 2015 or at least to May, 2015. In
addition, I proposed an amendment to prohibit the State Board of
Education from applying for or accepting any federal grant that requires
adoption of specific academic standards, assessments,
or curricular goals and materials that deviate from the statutory
requirements established by North Carolina. The chairs of our committee
agreed with this amendment in principle, but wanted me to work with
them to fine tune the wording so that it does not
cause constitutional difficulties. So I expect to be working with Rep.
Holloway, Sen. Soucek, and Rep. Speciale to get the bill with that
provision ready for a vote during the short session. What my proposed
amendment means is that we will no longer allow
the State Board of Education to accept unconstitutional federal
interference in North Carolina public education.

I am very pleased with today's results, and look forward to completing
this effort to finish off Common Core in North Carolina. I hope many
other States will soon follow our lead.

In modern terminology, it would have been what we would call
a "game changer."

As it was, William C. Powers' invention was nothing more
than a dream of a Confederate man who longed to break the stranglehold of the
Union forces.

The year was 1862 and Powers, a Mobilian and architectural
engineer by trade, was trying to figure out a way to break the Navy's blockade
of Confederate ports. Knowing the Southern states did not have the naval power
to break through the blockade, he thought of another way to get much needed
supplies and commerce out of the ports.

If ships couldn't go through the blockades, maybe a special
type of "air ship" could go above it, he reasoned. Or, maybe the air ship could drop bombs on the blockading ships.

Thursday, April 24, saw a steep escalation of tensions between Moscow
and Kiev after the Ukrainian army killed up to five pro-Russian
militiamen in an attack on three checkpoints outside the eastern town of
Slavyansk. President Vladimir Putin threatened “consequences.” He added
that the legitimacy of the May 25 elections was in serious question.
Defense Minister Gen. Sergey Shoigu ordered the Russian army to start
drills at Rostov on Don near the Ukraine border.

debkafile’s
military sources report that this order amounted to a state of alert,
which required the troops to close their distance to the Ukraine border
and take up prepared positions as bridgeheads for entering East Ukraine
when the order is given.

Ukraine’s acting president demanded that Moscow pull its troops back from the border and stop “blackmail.”

In the past 48 hours, Russian officials have kept up an unprecedented
stream of invective against the provisional government in Kiev and the
Obama administration’s military, intelligence and financial intervention
in Ukraine.

The opening shot was fired by Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin,
who Wednesday, April 23, blamed the US for the “pushing through the most
radical scenario” in Kiev to save its $5 billion investment in regime
change.

He was commenting on the statement by US Assistant Secretary of State
Victoria Nuland who told CNN Monday that the US had invested around $5
billion in supporting democracy in Ukraine since the fall of the Soviet
Union.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov came next. He charged Washington with
“running the show very much, very much.” As proof, Lavrov pointed to the
timing of the Ukrainian government's re-launch of its security
operation just after a two-day visit by US Vice President Joe Biden. The
Ukraine army “had been ordered to shoot at people engaged in peaceful
protests,” he said. Yet Kiev had failed to disarm its own extremists.

This was rounded off Thursday by Putin, who accused the Kiev “junta”
of using the “military machine” to perpetrate a “very, very serious war
crime against its own people” and promised “consequences.”

Mr. Holder was expected to deliver remarks at the afternoon graduation ceremony, according to his official itinerary sent out by the Justice Department Thursday morning.

A Justice Department spokesman denied that the trip was canceled because of the possibility of a hostile reception. An early meeting at the Justice Department delayed Mr. Holder’s departure from Washington, causing him to miss the graduation ceremony, spokesman Brian Fallon said in an email.

“The attorney general had been looking forward to addressing the cadets, and regrets he cannot attend in person,” Mr. Fallon said. “He extends his heartfelt congratulations to the cadets and their families.”
But Mr. Holder’s
scheduled visit to Oklahoma City drew the criticism of several
conservative lawmakers who planned the protest in anticipation of his
arrival, including Republican state Rep. Paul Wesselhoft, who has said he believes that Mr. Holder should be impeached.

“Our protest has turned into a victory celebration because we frankly didn’t want him here — and we succeeded,” Mr. Wesselhoft
said in an interview. “This man has used his position to advance his
own political agenda and that’s not right. He swore to uphold the U.S.
Constitution and defend it for all of us — not some of us.”

Remembrance

Execution of Colonel Ho Ngoc CanLast words: "If I won the war, I would not condemn you as you have condemned me.I would not humiliate you as you have humiliated me.I would not ask you questions that you asked me.I fought for the freedom of my people.I have merit and I am not guilty.No one can convict me.History will criticize you as my Communist enemy.You want to kill me, then kill me.Do not blindfold me.Down with the Communists.Long live the Republic of Viet Nam !"

Colonel CraigMandeville:

“They wanted the people to see that he was dead,” said Craig Mandeville, an American adviser to the South Vietnamese army who fought side by side with Can. “He was believed to be some sort of invincible guy. The North Vietnamese thought that, too, and I even thought that when I fought with him.”

“He said, ‘OK, the country’s fallen, but by God we’re still South Vietnamese and we’re free,’ ” Mandeville recalled. “So he went down to Chuong Tien province and rounded up all these soldiers down there to form a Free Vietnam.”

Col. Can didn’t live long after that, but the legacy of his struggle lives on.

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Core Creek Militia

==============================My sixth great grandfather, his wife, and five of his six children were killed in battle with the Tuscarora Indians at Core Creek, NC.

The Seven Blackbirds

==============================My third great grandfather was an Ensign in the Revolutionary War, and saved his unit's flag after being wounded at the Battle of Brandywine. He was also at Kingston (Kinston), Wilmington, Charleston, Two Sisters and Augusta. He was at the defeat at Brier Creek and also Bee Creek.

Requiem Aeternam -
Eternal Rest Grant unto Them
==============================
My second great grandfather was killed in action on May 3, 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville.
=============================
My great grandfather and great uncle knew all the men in the "Civil War Requiem" video as they were part of the 53rd NC which was the sole unit defending Fort Mahone. (Fort Mahone was named "Fort Damnation" by the Yankees) *Handpicked men of the 53rd (My great grandfather was one of these) made the final, night assault at Petersburg in an attempt to break Grant's line. This was against Fort Stedman which was a few miles to the slight northeast. They initially succeeded, but reinforcements drove them back. This video is made from photographs which were taken the day after the 53rd evacuated the lines the night before to begin the retreat to Appomattox. I have many more pictures taken by the same photographer, one of these shows a 14 year old boy and the other is the famous picture of the blond, handsome soldier with his musket.
===========================
*General Gordon promised the men a gold medal and 30 days leave if they accomplished their task and many years after the War my great grandfather wrote General Gordon, who was then governor of Georgia about this incident. They exchanged several letters which I have framed. See first link below.
===========================
*The Attack On Fort Stedman
============================
"His Colored Friends"
============================
Lee's Surrender
=============================
My Black NC Kinfolks
============================
Punished For Being Caught!

Great Grandfather Koonce

He was a drummer boy in the WBTS, survived the War only to die a few years later. He was caught in an ice storm on his way home, but instead of seeking shelter, continued on his horse until the end. His clothes had to be cut off and he died a few days later.